Win 7 isn't working right AT ALL

[Thorsen]

Oh I'm not discouraged... I do like it when it's running right, like now. I'm sure once all these flukey things are ironed it it'll be fine. I just never had so many issues with getting a system up and running.

I forgot to mention that, during the internet outage, I ran 2 cycles of the extended memory test. No problems were found. I'm thinking maybe outdated motherboard drives could be causing all of it, since the hardware is really the only thing that was common across all installs. That or the BIOS. This machine is 3 years old, old enough to be outdated for 7 I guess. I can't find a bios update though; I'll probably be calling the mfr, I think it's Phoenix, on Monday.

Time to look for MB drivers...

Any luck finding the Drivers or with the MFR, Scott?

 

[DeaconFrost]

It DOES work, and should be the first line of defense in case of a system failure. It can give you the chance to fix a problem before having to completely reinstall.

Speaking of blanket statements....it DOES work...for you. It has never worked for me in well over 100 attempts on various systems, even on brand new, OEM setups. It is considered a feature, much like hibernate, that is great in theory, but is far less in reality.

Please stop spreading your own opinion around as fact, especially if you are going to accuse others of doing so. Like I said above...do the reading. Check out some other forum boards. You'll quickly realize the reality behind System Restore.

I stand very firmly behind my comments as well, backed by the facts I gave and the links. System Restore rarely works to solve the issue...it only masks the issue until it arises again, assuming it does anything to improve the systems current status, which is very rare.

The guide I linked to does warn against the ability to do restores in the future, but also gives better suggestions as to system recovery...points you neglected to mention.

Trust me, I wish you were correct in saying System Restore works great. I wish it really did, because it would be convenient. However, that's not the reality. If you think it is, consider yourself VERY lucky, because it is rare. It's been a laughable, often-miocked feature since it's implementation, and unlike most of the OS, hasn't been improved from XP to Windows 7.

 

[Jacee]

System Restore has ALWAYS been advised by security companies to be disabled, as it offers a nice hiding spot for malware to reside, so it can continually reinfect the system. That's been a known fact for years now, and has not changed.

That's not always true either ... Those of us who have been trained (and train) in malware removal don't agree with turning system restore off while cleaning a dirty machine. "A dirty restore point" is better to return to than none at all.

After the machine has been cleaned, then it is time to flush the old restore points by turning system restore off, rebooting, then turning it back on again.

 

[gregrocker]

I can think of at least a dozen times in just the past few weeks that System Restore has saved the day for Users who otherwise would have had to reinstall or spend hours troubleshooting issues with possibly no fix.

They had a time machine to erase a mistake as though it never happened - what more can you ask for?

Turn it off at your own risk :shock: and for what good reason?

A better idea is if you have unused disk space then increase the percentage which stores restore points to 10% or more so you have more choices going further back, at Computer>Properties>Advanced Tools>System Protection>Configure. (That's working from memory, for good reason).

 

[housry23]

Just use 32-bit version of Windows 7 if it was working fine and 64-bit isn't. The minimum requirement for a 64-bit Windows 7 is 2GB of RAM and that is what you have. It takes more ram to run a 64-bit OS and as you install more and more apps it will dip into that and if you don't have at least 3GB of RAM I would not suggest running 64-bit Windows 7. Why spend all this time and trouble trying to get something to work when you can install 32-bit with no problems. Just my opinion. Good luck and I hope you get your troubles sorted out.

 

[Product FRED]

System Restore has ALWAYS been advised by security companies to be disabled, as it offers a nice hiding spot for malware to reside, so it can continually reinfect the system. That's been a known fact for years now, and has not changed.

That's not always true either ... Those of us who have been trained (and train) in malware removal don't agree with turning system restore off while cleaning a dirty machine. "A dirty restore point" is better to return to than none at all.

After the machine has been cleaned, then it is time to flush the old restore points by turning system restore off, rebooting, then turning it back on again.

I agree. My friend asked me to take a look at his sister's badly-infected laptop. It wouldn't even boot. But as soon as I rolled it back using system restore, even though it was still infected, it booted just fine. The only thing that was wrong after that was that the malware was making executables an unknown file type to the user (would bring up "Open With" dialog). I got around that by right clicking and running as Administrator. After that, I just removed the trial AV that came with the computer and removed everything with Malwarebytes and MSE.

 

[Colonel Travis]

I can think of at least a dozen times in just the past few weeks that System Restore has saved the day for Users who otherwise would have had to reinstall or spend hours troubleshooting issues with possibly no fix.

replace "Users" with "me" and the statement still holds true. SR has saved my sweet patootie too many times to remember. Two days ago I was tinkering around and accidentally screwed up something in the registry. It also affected SR, and I'm still trying to figure out what I did exactly. Bottom line is that SR was wiped out (never seen that before) and I had to do a clean install. This is the only time I can think of that SR failed me in Windows 7, and that's because I did something that affected its operation.

 

[CarlTR6]

System Restore has ALWAYS been advised by security companies to be disabled, as it offers a nice hiding spot for malware to reside, so it can continually reinfect the system. That's been a known fact for years now, and has not changed.

That's not always true either ... Those of us who have been trained (and train) in malware removal don't agree with turning system restore off while cleaning a dirty machine. "A dirty restore point" is better to return to than none at all.

After the machine has been cleaned, then it is time to flush the old restore points by turning system restore off, rebooting, then turning it back on again.

+1 I agree whole heartedly - and I am not trained in malware removal. It also come in handy to eliminate problems and BSOD's caused by a recent install or a recent update.

 

[DeaconFrost]

I can't think of one time since XP's release that System Restore has actually worked or solved an issue for me. Rather that, problems usually fall into two groups. Either a relatively quick fix, that leaves the issue completely resolved (rather than a roll back that could re-occur), or a simple repair install fixes the problem, leaving the computer at a normal operating mode. Reinstallation, for me, is never a troubleshooting tool, unless I have no faith in the OS's stability or security anymore, such as one so badly infected with malware that even after total removel, random issues still occur. If a driver or app is the issue, you have driver rollbacks or safe mode for removal, followed by something like Driver Cleaner or CCleaner. Windows 7 even has a great system image utility built-in that would do the same rough job as System Restore (only more complete). If anyone is running WHS at home, you have even better options still.

 

[Scott2010]

I can't think of one time since XP's release that System Restore has actually worked or solved an issue for me.

^^ I'm in that boat. Anyway back to the issue:

Got the system finished finally, and it's running beautifully. It is damn fidgety about what drivers I use though. I actually let driver detective take over this last time, which is saying something because I have some bad history with that program. It updated the video with a driver from March, which is several updates ago. It didn't say anything about the mobo drivers being out of date, so I'm leaving it be for now.

So, video updated, no updates for the mobo, and everything's good. Haven't dl'd any windows updates either. I've been making system images constantly, just in case.

On a side note: I had to pull my dvd and put it on my son's pc to install Modern Warfare 2 for him as it's the only drive in the house that'll read those cd's. Had to pull the faceplate off my pc to do it. It's top heavy, there's a door that swings open, looks like an armor plate. Anyway, it fell from where I had it propped and it yanked the cord out from the back of the reset button. I put it back in, but now the button's all mashed in.... All the f'n luck... Haven't made a serious attempt to fix it yet though. I'm taking a day off...

Thanks for all the help!

 

[stormy13]

Where are you getting teh video and chipset drivers from? With having both a Nvidia chipset and video cards I wouldn't get them from anywhere other than Nvidia (and definitely not through Windows Update),

NVIDIA DRIVERS 257.21 WHQL

NVIDIA DRIVERS 15.53 WHQL

 

[Colonel Travis]

I can't think of one time since XP's release that System Restore has actually worked or solved an issue for me.

Not one time?

 

[CarlTR6]

I can't think of one time since XP's release that System Restore has actually worked or solved an issue for me. Rather that, problems usually fall into two groups. Either a relatively quick fix, that leaves the issue completely resolved (rather than a roll back that could re-occur), or a simple repair install fixes the problem, leaving the computer at a normal operating mode. Reinstallation, for me, is never a troubleshooting tool, unless I have no faith in the OS's stability or security anymore, such as one so badly infected with malware that even after total removel, random issues still occur. If a driver or app is the issue, you have driver rollbacks or safe mode for removal, followed by something like Driver Cleaner or CCleaner. Windows 7 even has a great system image utility built-in that would do the same rough job as System Restore (only more complete). If anyone is running WHS at home, you have even better options still.

I can only think of two times, since the release of XP, that system restore has not worked for me.

 

[chrysalis]

I'll break our tradtition and agree with you on this one. Although running it on a system with 2 GB cancels out one of it's biggest benefits, Windows 7 x64 should run just fine with only 2 GB of system memory. You will have slightly less headroom for apps, given the fact that x64 OSes use a little more memory, but that doesn't mean you'll have issues with stability. I also had a system running on 2 GB while waiting for a memory upgrade, and it ran just fine.

also agree, when I was testing the RC build my laptop only had 1 gig for a while before I upgraded it.

I checked the op's specs and I fail to see why he had so many graphics card issues, his card is a 7900GT, my test machine has a 7600GT and works out of the box with the windows drivers as well as nvidia drivers.

 

[DeaconFrost]

Not one time?

Honestly, not one. It had many chances to try though, thanks to family and friends who don't like a working, running system apparently.

The fix, for me, has always been just as easy and always more effective to tackle to issue at hand directly, rather than cover it up. Like I said above, there are always other ways. Driver's can be rolled back or removed. Apps can be removed in safe mode, or forceable removed. Malware can be removed, thanks to some nice, free tools. If the system isn't booting, a repair install does the trick. It's honestly to the point I haven't even tried a system restore in the last 6 months or so, because the time I wasting trying system restore, can be better spent fixing the actual problem.

 

[gregrocker]

A repair install cannot be done if the System isn't booting.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html?ltr=R

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/681-startup-repair.html?ltr=S

 

[DeaconFrost]

A repair install cannot be done if the System isn't booting.

You're combining two separate issues. If the system doesn't boot, you can run a startup repair, which happens to work very well. If the system is booting, but is experiencing odd issues, such as one might after a malware infestation, you can repair it. Windows 7 handles these differently than previous OSes, as in they are two separate processes, but either one can be used.

 

[Scott2010]

stormy - I let the Windows Update install the driver for the video card the first time, and when it fragged the system (it was obviously the update since that was the first thing I did after the install) I haven't touched it since. I've been getting drivers straight from Nvidia, or from 3dguru (I think) who apparently gets nvidia drivers before they post to Nvidia's site. My system just doesn't like those later drivers I guess...

And, back to sys restore, I can think of ONE time it worked, when I installed some video drivers and the video was fragged after the reboot. I couldn't roll back the drivers manually, so I went to SR and it did roll back the drivers, so yeah it worked. Didn't fix the fragged video though, so had to reinstall anyway...

 

[gregrocker]

It can even SysRestore when the OS won't boot, using the Repair CD or DVD Repair console. SysRestore is built into Startup Repair, but can also be run separately from the Recovery Tools list.

 

[xymptlx]

I had a heap of problems too. I hired a good tech guy. Some of things he did was disable UAC and DEP, then remove Roboform off the 64 bit version of IE 8, and set me up with the 32 bit version with same. He worked at lightning speed and had all my blue screens, freezups and crashes cured within an hour, including installing the correct drivers for my printers etc., that didn't work. To say have you tried reinstalling windows is a really dumb place to start I'm sorry to say. That would be as foolish as ripping out your engine because your signal light doesn't work.